


Music To Watch Boys To

by Tabbyluna



Series: Fictober 2020 [12]
Category: Skylanders (Video Games)
Genre: Beach Episode, Gen, Hanging Out, Male-Female Friendship, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26968114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabbyluna/pseuds/Tabbyluna
Summary: Echo liked listening to music, and she liked watching her friends.
Relationships: Blades & Echo & Zap, Echo & Blades, Echo & Zap
Series: Fictober 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947136
Kudos: 2





	Music To Watch Boys To

**Author's Note:**

> I really like the title of this one. It's been forever since I was a real fan of Lana Del Rey (I don't really listen to her music anymore), but I'd wanted to write a story named after that song for a long time, and I'm glad I was finally able to.

Echo liked going to the beach with Blades and Zap. Mostly because they were fun to be around. They liked including her in their antics too, even if her participation was limited to standing around and watching them. Usually, that was what happened. Echo would park herself in a corner, on her beach towel, and listen to music. While Zap and Blades did their own thing. Sometimes it was playing beach volleyball. Other times it was collecting seashells. And sometimes, it was something like a race or an obstacle course, with rules made up on the spot of course.

Growing up as an only child, she often wondered what life would have been like if she had siblings. She figured that maybe life as a sister would have been a lot like what spending time with the two of them was like.

“Hey, Echo! Watch me!” Blades would call out, before jumping off a palm tree right into the ocean. According to him, it felt a lot like smashing into concrete, and the ocean was surprisingly cold for a day that was so warm. But he was ultimately glad that he went through with it. “It was pretty fun. You really ought to try it sometime, Echo. We could even do it together.”

Echo smiled at him. A small smile, almost like a smirk. “I’d rather not. But if you want to try it again, I say go ahead.” Needless to say, Blades decided that doing it once was enough and he didn’t really want to go through with it again.

It happened frequently enough that Echo made a playlist to listen to whenever she watched them. Skylands was at a funny period in its history, where either everything was happening all at once, or barely anything was happening. Whenever Skylands was in a ‘barely anything happening’ period, they went to the beach together a lot. Some Skylanders picked up hobbies to spend those dormant periods. Needless to say, they were not among them.

Could what Zap and Blades were doing be counted as a hobby? Most of the activities they did together on the beach were barely connected to each other. The only connection they had was that most of the activities seemed pointless on the surface, often involved some sort of stunt one dared the other to perform, and could be considered some sort of test of either courage, wit, or skill. 

Zap always won competitions involving speed, on land and especially at sea. Blades won those which required accuracy, tail-eye coordination. For feats of strength, it was a fifty-fifty split. They requested for Echo to keep score, and for the most part the results highly depended on luck and how they were feeling that day. If one of them had a winning streak, eventually the other would catch up. 

That was funnily enough, the reason why they kept doing challenges of strength. The two of them were competitive boys. Even when they were relaxing on the beach. And while they loved to show off their areas of expertise, and get better at their skills in the process, there was something they found fun about doing challenges outside of what they excelled at. Maybe it was because inexperience was an equaliser. Maybe it was because they liked the new experience it brought. Whatever the case, Echo usually sat out of those challenges. Preferring to spend her time at the beach relaxing, as well as keeping score for them.

If it ended up raining, or if they stayed a bit later and needed to eat dinner there, they would always head for the same sheltered walkway. There, they would all order a drink from the drink stand (sometimes they would even order ice cream), and chat. 

“You know,” said Zap, pointing at Echo’s headphones. “I always wondered, what sort of songs do you listen to?”

Echo took a long sip of her coconut water, then answered him. “Well, I listen to a bit of everything really. You know, electronica, pop, rap, reggae, some rock, some metal, a little bit of country, a little bit of jazz, a little classical, a little R and B. You know, my tastes are all over the place.”

“Well then, what new things are you listening to now?” Asked Blades, his brow raised. 

Echo smiled at him. “Well, the last new thing I listened to - or well, at least it’s new to me - is this concept album by this underground group. They’re called the Purplr Pipers, you’ve probably never heard of them. They’re a four-man group of sandpipers from the Rocky Ridges. This album was truly about experimentation for them. They experimented a little with freeform jazz, a little with hard rock, even a little with bubblegum pop - that one was pretty controversial among the fans, but I thought that they pulled it off well. Lyrical themes of the album include existentialism, living with depression, and submarine sandwiches.” When she finished saying all that, she relished in the funny looks the two boys gave her. With a smirk, she continued sipping her drink.

It was Blades’ turn to slowly sip his drink - an orange soda - and once he did he turned to give her a wry smile. “Echo, has anyone ever told you that you’re honestly such a hipster?” He asked.

“All the time Blades,” she sipped up the last of her coconut water. “All the time.”

Though they really did not do much while at the beach, it was without a doubt such an important part of their lives. The three of them were never productive. They never spent their time wisely doing anything of substance. All they did was slow down, stop, smell the roses together. They got up to all sorts of nonsense, without much care about how it would affect them long-term. 

Most would say that they were being lazy. They needed to spend their time more wisely. After all, they were Skylanders. And Skylanders needed to be prepared for anything. Some - usually those who were not Skylanders, like their families - even said that if they stopped being lazy, they might end up with better memories in the future. 

But funnily enough, during those times when they were lazy together, they ended up making some of the most memorable experiences in their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I realise I write a lot of gen. I don't know why.


End file.
